WOODBRIDGE, N.J. _ On a chilly evening splashed with rain last week, Atif Nazir left his office in Newark and drove to Woodbridge, where a strip of South Asian and Middle Eastern shops sell everything from jewelry and curry to saris and sweets. Nazir, who volunteers with the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) in New Jersey, headed for the area’s cluster of halal butchers, where he was eagerly expected. For the last week, he and some 80 volunteers around the state have been spending their evenings this way, collecting thousands of pounds of meat slaughtered during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha to distribute in underprivileged areas. Nazir receives calls all day and into the night _ from butchers who are weighed down in donated meat, from imams arranging to distribute it, from fellow Muslims who want to donate but don’t know how. “This man has called me six times,” Nazir said of one butcher as he tucked his cellphone back in his pocket. “He had 500 pounds of meat. `What do I do?’ he said.” Eid al-Adha, or the “big feast,” celebrates the story of the prophet Abraham, who was ordered by God to sacrifice his son, but was allowed to substitute a ram instead. The three-day holiday started on Dec. 8. Muslims traditionally sacrifice an animal (usually a sheep or goat) for Eid al-Adha, making it a critical time for trusted halal butchers, who are the vessel through which the sacrifice can happen. They take orders months in advance. According to Islamic practice, meat slaughtered on Eid al-Adha is portioned into three parts _ one-third for the family, one-third for relatives and friends, and one-third to be distributed to the poor. In Muslim countries, distributing the meat is made easy through a network of family members, community leaders and charities. But there is no similarly established system here, said Yaser ElMenshawy, chairman of the Newark-based Majlis Ash-Shura of New Jersey, the state’s council of mosques. “That’s a problem,” ElMenshawy said. “We don’t have the infrastructure in place. People just don’t know what to do.” Many expatriates end up sticking with what they know and have an animal slaughtered in their home country, ElMenshawy said. In New Jersey, home to a large immigrant and Muslim population, ICNA has made inroads in setting up that missing infrastructure, Nazir said. Local Islamic organizations are connecting imams and butchers with Muslim leaders in underprivileged areas. “They know who the needy are,” Nazir said. Most importantly, ICNA volunteers provide the legwork to transport the meat from those who have it to those who don’t. “Most of the people who have the ability to slaughter, those people don’t need the meat,” said Abdoulaziz Ouedraogo, imam at the Masjid As’habul Yameen in East Orange, which has been distributing the meat. “This is the purpose of the sacrifice _ to keep some and give the rest to the poor.” “We have a lot of people who need the meat,” agreed Ismael Mahmoud El-Shikh, imam at the National Islamic Association in Newark. “It’s a big issue,” said Sayed Hadi, of East Brunswick, who was dropping off a donation of meat at Phalwan Halal Meat and Grocery in Iselin. “Without people organizing this, it would be really difficult.” The network is growing by word of mouth. Hadi, a Pakistani doctor doing his residency in the United States, learned from his family to drop off donations at Phalwan. He told a friend, who came with him to drop off his own donation. Up the road, at Shahnawaz Halal Meat, manager Mohamad Khan said he expects to unload about 1,000 pounds of donated meat this week. Khairy Farouk of Iselin Halal Meat said he was packing up about 250 pounds of donated meat a day. ICNA volunteers collect and distribute some 30,000 pounds of meat after Eid al-Adha each year, Nazir said. At Masjid As’habul Yameen, hundreds of people gathered for the Friday prayer. Outside, Musa Ajon Cherry, one of the mosque’s founding members, and other volunteers, including Nazir, manned a table piled up with more than 200 plastic bags, each holding about 5 pounds of meat. People leaving the prayer were encouraged to take a bag home. The meat was gone in a matter of 10 minutes. Cherry said the meat is also available to people who don’t attend the mosque but come from other areas because they know it will be there, he said. As the call to prayer sounded out from the mosque marking the next prayer, Cherry said the meat distribution is a simple expression of how Islam encourages people to know and help others. “You have to speak to your neighbor,” Cherry said. “You have to want for your brother what you would want for yourself.” (Nyier Abdou writes for The Star Ledger in Newark, N.J.) KRE/CSW END ABDOU

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